Alex Palou finished in second at Mid-Ohio after starting on pole and leading 75 out of the 90 laps. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver “still had an amazing weekend” despite his “big mistake” in the final laps of the race.
Palou was able to keep his lead with the incident with Josef Newgarden and Graham Rahal behind him. Even with a late pit call, he was still able to keep his lead until he made a mistake a Turn 9. This mistake caused his teammate, Scott Dixon, to take the lead to the checkered flag to win at Mid-Ohio.
Final laps mistake
The reigning champion acknowledged how his incident was “a big mistake by my part” as he could not keep his grip with the tyre marbles on track.
“Big mistake, man. Big mistake. Yeah, nothing in particular happened. Just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out.”
‘Lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race.”
The 28-year-old tried to catch Dixon, but did not have enough time to regain the lead, noting the race was “not over until it’s over”.
“But yeah, man, it’s not over until it’s over, until you see the checkered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car. Yeah, just lost it.”
Seeing the glass half full
For someone as dominant as Palou this season, finishing in second at Mid-Ohio “hurt a little bit”. When if his finished hurt after losing the top spot, the Spaniard answered, “Yeah, for sure. I agree with that. I think when you lose – I think we lost today. It’s not like we got beaten, but we lost it, myself. Yeah, that’s going to hurt a little bit.”
“I’m hopefully going to learn from that. It’s still good in a way that we got one-two; we lost it but we kept it in the team. I think that’s going to keep the team happier and Chip [Ganassi] happier.”
“But yeah, for sure it hurts, man. It hurts doing a big mistake like that when you could have just — it’s easy now to just say, save a little bit there, you don’t need to be on the limit. But when you’re driving, you don’t feel like you’re that in the limit.”
Even with his final race finish, Palou still had “an amazing weekend” at Mid-Ohio finishing in second and starting from pole.
“Yeah, it’ll take a couple of hours, but then at the end of the day we still finished second, still had an amazing weekend, and we should be proud about that.
Things could have been worse
Palou took the positives from the incident, as he was able to continue racing after finding himself off the racing line. The driver was in the loose tyre marbles, making the track feel “like ice”.
“Yeah, the issue was the marbles, getting into the marbles, then I had it felt like ice, and then I got into the curb and I couldn’t get out of the curb and the RPM dropped a lot and I didn’t have any power at all. I was full throttle, but it was just going so slow.”
The Chip Ganassi driver noted, “it could have been a lot worse”, possibly ending his race once the end was near. Palou was happy to have a “good save” to finish the race and second and to continue his points lead after Mid-Ohio.
“Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. I could have ended up on the tires real easily, and the tires are not very far away from the curb in that corner.”
“Yeah, all in all, it was a good save. I can say instead of a mistake, it was a good save. Yeah, I’ll take it that way. It was a good save.”
